After many months of being out of bounds, glasshouses around the UK reopened on 17th May. In my book this is cause for celebration, I really missed spending time under glass, especially over winter when everything else was grey, cold and miserable. Ed and I made the trip down to London on Friday to visit Kew Gardens for the first time in two years, as he had the week off school for half term. It rained, all day, but nothing could dampen our spirits.
May was a wet month, and it seemed to do nothing but rain for days on end. Hopefully we’ll have a good berry crop at the end of summer from such a wet start to spring, and as I write this at the very end of the month the forecast is looking up.
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It’s time for another plant journal update, and this month I wanted to capture some photos of my little cuttings as I know that they will grow lots and look very different in just a few short months.
Hoya is probably my favourite genus of houseplant, and I have fallen deep down the rabbit hole with them. I have bought tiny cuttings from eBay and Etsy sellers because they are affordable that way at just a few pounds each – I refuse to pay silly money for a plant, no matter how beautiful it is. I have the time and the patience to put in to growing these plants from cuttings, and I really enjoy watching them root then push out new leaves. I don’t think I’d get the same sense of satisfaction if I took care of a more mature (and more expensive) plant!
My hoya collection fits on one small table and the windowsill and when they grow a bit bigger I will trellis them to keep their footprint small, so although there are quite a few of them, they take up less space than a single palm or aroid! Hoya cuttings are always in demand so if they end up too big for my space, I can always prune them and sell cuttings for an affordable price to give back to the community I bought my cuttings from. I don’t plan to make a profit from them, but just to put cuttings back into circulation so that other people can enjoy collecting them as much as I do.
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April was a month for reunions; we met up with my parents, Ed’s parents, and Ed’s brother and girlfriend. I hadn’t seen my parents in six months or Ed’s brother since September 2019, so it was lovely to be able to see each other in person again.
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This little succulent has been threatening death all winter long. It kept dropping leaves – they’d pucker and turn yellow then fall off – whether I left it completely dry or gave it a tiny bit of water. Towards the end of January it started etiolating (stretching out in search of light) and whilst I could empathise, I was also ready to give up on it altogether. Fast forward to the start of April, and I put it out on the balcony under my cold frame, thinking that the cold might kill it, but the extra light might save it. It hasn’t dropped any leaves recently and it has turned a lovely pink with the cold stress of being outside.
For now, it lives.
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